


I'll take you any way you are

by DyedViolet



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I think so at least????, Starts out funny ends very tender, crackfic that turned serious halfway through, monsterfucker tohru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyedViolet/pseuds/DyedViolet
Summary: Tohru shows Kyo that his true form isn't all bad.
Relationships: Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	I'll take you any way you are

Kyo and Kazuma spar outside. The bracelet is yanked away, the secret is revealed, and Kyo runs away in the driving rain.

"I am sorry to have to do it like this, but this couldn't remain a secret any longer," Kazuma explains. "If anyone can help him now, it's you, Tohru." She is standing in the rain, staring after the spot where Kyo disappeared over the horizon. She is biting her lip, eyes somewhat vacant.

"...Tohru?"

"R–Right! I'm going after him!" she yells. She runs into the forest, rain barely able to cool her face.

"K–Kyo? After dinner, I was wondering if, ah, well…" Tohru stumbles over her words before giving up and eating a bite of soup.

"Well? Spit it out, what did you want to say?" Kyo also stuff his face with soup, hoping the steam will be enough to hide the pinking of his cheeks.

"I–I wanted to, um… t–to dr–draw you." Shigure's eyebrows hop up on his forehead.

"Tohru-chan, I didn't know you could draw!" he coos.

"O–only a little…" she mumbles.

"W–well, if it's what you want, th–then I'm fine with it!" Kyo manages to say.

"I–I meant–I meant to ask i–if I could draw you with… With–without–Without the, uh, with–" Tohru stutters.

"I swear, if this is some weird idea Shigure put you up to," Yuki mutters.

"Without the bracelet!" Tohru finally says. Yuki's spoon falls out of his hand into the bowl with a gentle plop. Shigure's eyebrows hike the rest of the way up and he sprays his soup across the table, dissolving into laughter. Kyo's spoon clatters to the floor, with his body frozen as stiff as a board.

"W–wh–what?" he breathes.

"W–Well, when y–you were–that form was–I though that–well…" Tohru trails off, unable to explain herself. Kyo can't wrap his head around why she, why  _ anybody _ , would want this, but. Her face is flushed, farther than can be blamed on any amount of soup, and her gaze, even half-hidden behind a ducked head, is wide and hopeful. Her legs are pressed together where she sits–Kyo isn't equipped to even  _ begin  _ processing what that means. And, well, she asked.

"I–If that's what you… want…" Kyo agrees, his voice trailing off to a whisper.

"Go ahead and get started, kids, I don't think keeping you at the table will do anyone any good!" Shigure says between bouts of laughter, a wide grin threatening to muddle his words at the slightest misstep. "Don't worry about cleaning up, I–I should be able to handle it f–for one–one night!" He gives up on holding his composure, collapsing into a wheezing puddle in his own soup mess.

"Th–Thank you, Shi–Shigure!" Tohru says, standing up stiffly. "I–I'll go get the su–supplies!" And off she goes.

"You sure about this?" Yuki asks with a raised brow.

"U–Um," Kyo answers intelligently. Yuki shrugs and returns to his soup. They sit in relative silence, considering Shigure, as Tohru's footsteps pound up the stairs, to her room, and then stall until they come back the way they came. Tohru returns with a sketchpad almost too big for her to hold and a messy fistful of pencils.

"Go to the yard," Shigure says with a sigh as he reigns himself in again. "Just make sure the neighbors don't see you!" He says that with an edge to his voice, like it's meant to be some sort of joke.

"Don't make weird implications," Yuki says blandly, and Kyo thinks he can figure out the joke now. He doesn't try to, though.

"Okay!" Tohru says, grabbing Kyo by the wrist–the empty one–and dragging him outside. He follows limply as she marches to a spot just outside of the forest–A good distance from the house, and with enough trees to feel private.

"S–So, do, uh, do you want to take it off, or sh–should–"

"I'll do it," Kyo cuts her off. He turns around so she can't see his face, crouches so he won't tower so far over her. Takes off his shirt so it won't rip. "Just–Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure," she says, the clearest words she's spoken all night. He slips off the bracelet.

"O–Oh! That's a good pose, if you're comfortable I'll start with this!" He hears paper rustling, and soon the scratch of a pencil is the only sound between them.

He tries to sit still, be a good model for Tohru's drawing, but every so often his leg will twitch. He has to tamp down the instinct to run away, hide, never let another person  _ see you like this _ . Even after everything. At least now, he has the strength to battle that instinct.

"A little here… This part should be lighter than… Smudge this…" Tohru mutters to herself as she works. Then, as if her own thoughts startled her out of her focus, " –Oh! We should try another pose before the sun sets. Kyo? Would you turn around for me?"

"...Why?" he can't help himself from asking. His voice comes out in a scratchy rumble. He keeps his eyes trained on the grass beneath him as his stench wafts around him.

"Hmm?" Tohru questions.

"Why do you want to draw me like–like this?"

"...I think you look nice like this." He can't stop himself from wheeling around, turning to see her smiling fondly at the ground.

"Are you–Look at me!" She does, and the sunset catches on her rosy cheeks, bathing her in coral and gold. Her lips part in a silent gasp, and the papers rustle again before the pencils starts scratching in earnest.

"What part of me do you think looks nice?!"

"Let me draw you. I'll show you," she promises, her eyes darting back and forth between her paper and him. She draws her knees up so she doesn't have to hunch over her sketch pad.

"I–I smell like a corpse!"

"Have you ever cleaned out a fridge full of rotten eggs? You're fine, honey." She drops her polite speech, drops in 'honey' like it's a normal thing for her to say, and does it all without looking up from her graphite mess. Despite himself, it startles a laugh out of Kyo. It sounds like something Kyoko would say.

"How can you say those things?"

"It's only the truth." She tucks her pencil behind her ear and switches to a new one with a lighter sound as it grazes the paper. She is careful with these last few marks. "There. Now, one more." She tucks her sketchpad to her chest and holds her fistful of pencils, and stands.

"Just stay there for a moment, alright Kyo?" She approaches him, and his leg starts twitching again. Every muscle tenses like a coiled spring.

"I'm going to take your hand now," she says, and she does, lifting the long claws and giant palm ever so slowly. He moves his arm along with her pull–surely she's not strong enough to lift it–But what is she planning to–

Ah. She pulls his hand past her face, far enough for the fingers to comb through her hair if he tried. Tohru presses her lips to his pulse point, somehow managing to find it in his wristless forearm. Did someone stab him? There must be a knife sticking out of his chest–It's the only way to explain the sudden surge of his heart. The surge creeps its way up his throat, so he can only stare mutely as Tohru pulls away and smiles at him.

His hand stays in hers. Kyo can't find the strength to pull away. With her other hand, she resettles her sketchbook and starts to draw again. She looks at their hands, her fingers clasped around his open claws, and then looks back to her drawing. Kyo gets to watch the drawing, this time. He watches lines form the shape of where they touch, where Tohru clutches his upturned hand. Her fingers barely peek out from where they curl beneath his, but on paper they look more like little pearls. Her pencil still for a moment, and she thinks something over. Then she hums, and flips the pages back.

The drawing before their hands, when he had turned to face her. She captured the moment she made him laugh, with lips pulled back from his teeth and eyes crinkled. On a face like his, it should look murderous, savage, but it doesn’t. It just looks like a smile. Kyo can’t find any words to describe what that drawing makes him feel, and it turns out he doesn’t have to. Tohru flips back to the first drawing of the night.

_ That’s not me _ , Kyo thinks. It’s not the snarls and ugliness and terror that he’s learned to expect from this form of his. It’s a strong back, and if you squint, shoulders that curve gently inwards. There are messy strokes meant to be the grass he’s sitting in, and rings simulating the glow of the setting sun. There’s the start of shading over him, from before Tohru decided to get more work done before the sun left, and it almost makes him look soft.

The drawing makes him look like a monster that can be pitied instead of hated. Maybe even a monster that deserves sympathy.

Tohru closes the sketchbook, and her hands are so, so gentle along its edge.

“So. Th–That’s how I see you, K–Kyo,” she says, eyes darting between him and the sketchbook. Whatever spell that made her so bold just moments before has been broken. He doesn’t quite mind. His eyes are stinging, and he doesn’t trust his voice not to break, or turn to growls, or to even say the right words, so he hides his face in her shoulder, forehead resting against it. Gently. He’ll try to be gentle like the drawings. His hand is still in hers.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the words right out of his closed mouth. Plucking the sentiment straight from his heart. “You can put the bracelet back on now.”

He holds up his other arm, the beads balanced at the end of his claws. He tries to return the offer she made him earlier, and she understands. She takes the bracelet and slips it over his hand, working slowly like she’s trying not to break it. Like she’s savoring the moment. Anyone else would have hurried through it, forced it on to be done with it. It’s what finally does him in. He’s human again, but he still does his best to be quiet. Tohru’s sleeve is quickly growing damp.

His hand is still in hers. It feels nice to be held.


End file.
